SSTI Digest

While the Presidential election takes center stage on November 4, voters in several states also will cast their votes on statewide ballot issues affecting the TBED community. In addition to the 11 gubernatorial races and more than 5,800 state legislative seats up for grabs, voters across the nation will consider measures to provide funding for public education, expand investment in alternative and renewable energy, lift restrictions on stem-cell research, and eliminate income tax and state spending caps. Following is a summary of selected ballot issues from across the nation.

Funding Public Education

Florida Florida voters will be asked to amend the state constitution to require that the legislature authorize counties to levy a local option sales tax to supplement funding for public community colleges. Ballot question 8 requires voter approval to levy the tax.

Though the U.S. Treasury's initial proposal for a bailout of the financial sector was only three pages when it was first submitted to Congress, federal legislators did not waste time in expanding its scope. The $700 billion emergency stabilization package, passed early this month, eventually swelled to more than 400 pages. One of the largest additions to the bill was a new section extending incentives for alternative and renewable energy. 

These provisions include an extension of the wind energy Production Tax Credit and the solar energy Investment Tax Credit, as well as several other energy credits. In total, the bailout act contains 150 pages of energy provisions. 

Gov. Jim Douglas recently announced Vermont will roll out a suite of grants and incentives to strengthen the state's software industry. The initiative includes state-funded low-interest loans to software businesses, employment growth incentives and a tax credit for software research. In his unveiling of the software initiative at Champlain College's new Emergent Media Center, Gov. Douglas explained that state agencies will use these new measures in conjunction with the Center to help build a local software development cluster.

The U.S. should create a nationwide network of innovation zones which gather the capabilities of entities such as research parks, technology incubators, universities, and federal laboratories according to a recent report from the Association of University Research Parks (AURP). The Power of Place: A National Strategy for Building America's Communities of Innovation, recommends coupling distinct federal policies, regulatory reforms, and incentives along with these research and commercialization clusters to accelerate their impact.

In the 2002 report Signs of Life: The Growth of Biotechnology Centers in the U.S., Joseph Cortright and Heike Mayer suggested it would take more than a decade for biotech investment strategies to yield fruit  - as measured by NIH funding and biocommercialization efforts. On the state level, with five years of NIH research funding data now available, some states can boast real percentage and actual dollar changes in the amount of NIH funding captured.

Since total NIH funding peaked during the 2002-2006 period before beginning several years of nongrowth or decline in actual awards made, the gains in some states means other states saw declines.

Southern Growth hired Ted Abernathy, Jr., former Executive Vice President & COO of the Research Triangle Regional Partnership, to serve as its Executive Director, filling the vacancy created by Jim Clinton's resignation in September.

The Minnesota Center for Engineering & Manufacturing Excellence has hired Ronald Bennett as executive director.

The City of Virginia Beach Economic Development Department has hired Scott Hall to fill their newly created position of Business Development Coordinator.

Four recipients selected as best practice models in technology-based economic development were honored during an awards ceremony last week in Cleveland during SSTI's 12th Annual Conference. The awards follow a national competition emphasizing impact and replicability in approaches to building and sustaining tech-based economies.

"A crucial component to growing the nation's economy is supporting programs that are successful in developing and implementing initiatives that create high-paying jobs and provide U.S. businesses with the tools they need to compete in the global economy," said Dan Berglund, SSTI President and CEO. "This year's award recipients have generated significant returns for local, state and regional economies, each having an impressive story to share." 

Bank bailouts may be capturing all of the headlines, but a new initiative from the European Union (EU) promises to inject a considerable pool of money during the downturn to accelerate the development of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. The European Commission, as well as participants from the European research community and industry will contribute nearly 1 billion Euros (U.S. $1.28 billion) to the public-private partnership over the next six years to fund research. Stakeholders believe that this effort will help speed the commercialization of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies by two to five years, and are hoping for a mass-market rollout of these technologies before 2020.

Still no sign of improvement as the U.S. enters the third quarter of its initial public offering (IPO) drought.  Just one venture-backed company made an IPO exit in the third quarter of 2008, according to a release from Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) also were down 43 percent from the same quarter last year. NVCA explains that this slowdown is attributable to both the crisis in the financial markets and to a longer-term reduction in the number of exits. If this trend continues, they warn that capital could become scarce for companies seeking first time investments.

For several years governors across the country have announced life science and biotech initiatives that are as broad as they are large. The devil is in the details, and in most cases related to bio-based economic development, so are the opportunities. Participants in SSTI's 12th annual conference last week were reminded targeted investments in specialized areas related to merging existing life science and other technological strengths in a region are likely to have the greatest economic impact.

Over the past few weeks, two new initiatives were announced - one in Northeast Ohio and one in Wisconsin - highlighting more focused approaches to building research and commercialization capabilities within multiple industries through advances in the life sciences.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced earlier this month the establishment of five new university-based centers developing interdisciplinary research and education programs in partnership with industry in the areas of biorenewable chemicals, green energy systems, communications networks, medical implants and smart lighting.

Each of the Engineering Research Centers (ERC) will receive $18.5 million over five years to focus on technological breakthroughs that lead to new products and services, according to NSF. Additional institutional support has also been secured through several of the partnering universities. The centers can apply for a renewal through NSF that extends another five years and are expected to be self supporting after 10 years.

Complete descriptions of these opportunities and others are available at http://www.ssti.org/posting.htm.